The California Digital Library and its partners were awarded a $590,000 grant from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation to fund further development of the popular Data Management Planning Tool (DMPTool) in 2013. The bulk of the grant will go to the UC Curation Center (UC3) at the CDL to fund improvements to the DMPTool including expanded functionality, training modules, documentation and the creation of an open-source community to sustain the DMPTool in the future. Project partners are the University of Virginia Library, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Library, and DataONE.

Datasets are the currency of scientific and intellectual advancement. Despite this reality, most researchers are not aware of how best to manage their data. The DMPTool, launched in October 2011, is a freely available web application that addresses this need by guiding users through the process of creating a data management plan for a range of funders.

The current version of the DMPTool provides an easy to use interface that:

The Alfred P. Sloan Foundation is a philanthropic, not-for-profit grant-making institution based in New York City. Established in 1934 by Alfred Pritchard Sloan Jr., then-President and Chief Executive Officer of the General Motors Corporation, the Foundation makes grants in support of original research and education in science, technology, engineering, mathematics and economic performance.

About the University of California Curation Center (UC3) at the California Digital LibraryUC3 is a creative partnership bringing together the expertise and resources of the University of California. Together with the UC Libraries we provide high quality and cost-effective solutions that enable campus constituencies – museums, libraries, archives, academic departments, research units, and individual researchers – to have direct control over the management, curation, and preservation of the information resources underpinning their scholarly activities. For more information, visit www.cdlib.org/services/uc3/.